(Book review to be published in issue 3 in 2011 of the “International Problems Journal”. Translated from Serbian)

In the last couple of years many books and articles have been published here in Serbia and abroad where research has been undertaken regarding the causes and the consequences of the strong downturn in the world economy in the end of the first decade of the 21st century. The question that is being asked is to what extent the global economic crisis will lead to broader geopolitical changes.

In their recently published book ‘Beyond Oil Bust’ two researchers of the University of Nicosia James Leigh and Predrag Vukovic analyze the dramatic changes in the supply and demand of one of the most important sources of energy, oil, and they point to possible negative repercussions for the geopolitical map of the world. The authors first of all analyze the role of oil in the world economy starting from the first years of the twentieth century till today. It points to the fact that cheap oil was the basis that formed the overall development of the world economy – industry, mining, road, maritime and plane traffic, car manufacture, and cultivation of agriculture. It is almost unimaginable to point to a sector in which oil is not the energy progenitor or main energy input. The overall industrial society is built on the basis of one main source of energy – oil.